Bulwark Takes - Canada Dunked on Trump. Politely

Episode Date: October 25, 2025

Trump’s latest tantrum isn’t about policy, it’s about power, ego, and a Canadian baseball ad. JVL and Tim Miller discuss how Reagan’s anti-tariff words set him off, why his reaction says more about him than trade, and how the world is moving on without him. Plus: Doug Ford, maple syrup shade, and the return of tariffpalooza.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everyone. It's JVL here with Tim Miller of the bulwark. And our friends in Canada caused some trouble the other day. The government of Ontario ran an ad during a baseball game in which they used audio of President Ronald Reagan talking about why tariffs were a bad idea and why fake patriots like to claim that they bring prosperity, but they don't. They actually kill jobs and slow down economies. Tim, let's start out by listening to the ad. We'd love to. But when someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time.

But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wounds. Then the worst happens. Market shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the weight of prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. America's jobs and growth are at stake. So, we've had some fallout since then, Tim. First of all, the President of the United States cut off all trade negotiations with Canada.

As a result, he didn't like this. Seems kind of dramatic. Doesn't like seeing things on TV. Now, keep in mind, it wasn't the government of Canada that ran the ad. It was the government of Ontario. So I guess he thinks the Prime Minister of Canada should have the power to prevent the head of the Ontario government from running ads. Is that a free speech works? Yes. I think, yes, he thinks that. Or he's not really sure.

Ontario kind of sounds like Ottawa, you know, so maybe it was the capital and maybe it was actually Canada. I don't think that he's, my guess is he probably didn't take the time to really concern himself with the particulars. Yeah, yeah. But what I want to dig into is an intra-conservative question here, because we then had the Reagan Foundation rush out. And here's what they said. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute learned that the government of Ontario, Canada, created an ad campaign using selective audio and video of President Ronald Reagan delivering his radio address to the nation on free and fair trade dated April 25, 1987. The ad misrepresents the presidential radio address, and the government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks. the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Institute is reviewing its legal options in this matter. So the Reagan Foundation's position seems to be that the government of Ontario can't use words that Ronald Reagan said.

In a radio address. That's interesting. There's a couple words in there that caught my ear. Selective and misrepresented. Yes. Because they don't, I read that statement. And then I read it the second time. Now, you just read to me.

So I've heard it three times. And I'm still trying to figure out which exactly, what was the misrepresentation exactly? Yes. And I can't quite figure that out. The selective, I guess, is the only answer to that, which is that they chose just a portion of a longer radio address. And so that to me does bring something to mind, which is the 60 minutes. Yes. Right?

Which is like now, yeah, the new standard in the Trump administration. now is, I guess, if you're going to use audio or video of something that a politician said, you must use the entirety of that video or else you might be liable to lawsuit. And you must use the entirety of that video, unless you're allowed with a lawsuit, in particular if the video is something that Donald Trump doesn't like or anything hurts it, right? Only if, yeah, only, right? So 60 minutes, you know, had to use.

the entirety of the Kamala Harris interview because Donald Trump was under the impression it was bad and so her you know it's kind of kind of alluded still why Barry Lice's new boss settled with him but like I guess that you know in some way that he felt damaged by that in this case it was the old boss that settled

the old right yeah well I guess still there yeah yeah yeah I guess that is true there's some overlap I would say they've come in there hasn't been We all know why it happened. We all know why it happened.

Yeah, okay. Good, good fog, though. We want to be accurate. And so that is, I guess, true here, where the Ronald Reagan Library wanted Ontario. And you're only allowed to do 60 second ads on T. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's a problem, isn't it? And so I guess they wanted them there, the entire radio address.

Something like that. So here's what's interesting. If you go and listen to the actual full address, there's nothing misleading. It turns out that Ronald Reagan was against tariffs and he thought that's pretty well known. They did create economic harm. But here's what's interesting to me. There are three dynamics happening here. The first is that the Reagan Presidential Foundation intuits that they must, the way to protect Reagan's legacy is to somehow represent as if Reagan would agree with Trump today.

Correct? Yeah. Okay. And you say intuits, I just want to throw out there possibly that it was asked. Also possible? Because it was a pretty quick and pretty quick succession, the Reagan Institute, which whatever this, put out the statement and then Trump put out the bleat. Yes.

So that could have been a coincidence, but there also could have been, you know, the game could have been worked behind the scenes. But yes, either way, they either intuitive. it or told that they should make sure to ensure that Reagan's legacy was in line with whatever Trump would want today. All right. So interesting aspect number two. Ronald Reagan seems to be the only U.S. president that Trump is not comfortable saying

as a sucker and a loser. Because if this had been a clip of George W. Bush talking about tariffs or Barack Obama or George H.W. Bush, I imagine Trump would have said, yeah, that's right. that's what those suckers and losers thought. And they were wrong. That's a good observation. Yeah. He feels like he needs to jenny flect.

He has a Kennedy thing a little bit. Maybe. But he feels the need to genuflect before Reagan. Yeah. Which is interesting. Which brings us to the third part, which is that his running mate, J.D. Vance, is a critic of zombie Reaganism. Right.

Like there's a whole movie. The entire idea of Maga is that this zombie. Reaganism. We got to get over it. It's stupid and it's wrong. And we got to do something different. We got to do command state nationalism. And so you see like the weird like triangle of tension here? Like it doesn't add up. And I don't understand it. But I do think they probably understand something about their base and their voters here. Maybe they do. It's interesting. As usual, you're making me think about this a little differently. So I'm kind of doing this live fire, but I am again falling back on, I think this is an op.

Like, and I think that it's like the thing that comes to mind for me is, is that the most likely scenario here is not that there is like, they're thinking that deep. And I guess there's like this instinctive question of why does he care about Ronald Reagan? Like that is something that we should maybe get back to. But to me, like, I think maybe this is. not really part of an ideological project or the internizing Republican feuds. And what's most likely is that Trump saw the ad or that somebody saw the ad, right? Like Doug Ford pushed back and said that they're watching it.

They're going to re-air it tonight on the baseball playoffs. I'm sure just like our friends are Longwell at the Republican Accountability Project and Linker Project and others have done the thing where they run the ads and, you know, on the golf network and Mar-a-Lago. So, like, maybe it's that. Like, Trump saw the ad, and he just doesn't like, and he, and it's more of like a, it's less about Reagan, more about Canada. He's like, these fucking.